Defenestrate
by Awkward Little Boxes
Summary: Don't know what that word means? Please allow Soundwave to demonstrate. Do know what the word means? Then you must know just how Soundwave feels sometimes, being Third in Command of the Great Decepticon Army.


**Summary**: Don't know what that word means? Please allow Soundwave to demonstrate. Do know what the word means? Then you must know just how Soundwave feels sometimes, being Third in Command of the Great Decepticon Army.

**Notes**: This is my first Transformers fiction, so naturally I'm worried that I've mangled _everything_, even in something as short and silly as this. The prompt is from tformers100 on livejournal, and I've decided to take it as a literal directive for genre (which is actually the subdivision it belongs to). Knowing, however, how poorly things turn out when many of us try to be funny, I apologize in advance if this falls short.

Time Measurement: Joor = 6 hours 37 minutes

(as theorized in a post from 2006 from the_s_guy 's livejournal that I apparently can't link to in anyway)

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Transformers or imply any claim to rights; this is written for amusement and not profit.

**Prompt**: Humor

* * *

Defenestrate

* * *

Soundwave knew where this conversation was going.

He'd known since the moment he saw that particular arrangement of faceplates and brushed the surface of those thoughts. A resigned keen sounded in the privacy of his own processor and he continued to make all the obligatory gestures and sounds of interested attention at every pause in what was ramping up to be a truly magnificent rant.

Soundwave, in a rare moment of self-pity, lamented that the very meaning of the word neophyte precluded him from ever being one again. Well, with regard to the Decepticon Army anyway, and the nonsensical dance it required to navigate its varied, yet uniformly unhinged personalities. It was a tragic loss of simplicity.

His work and loyalty had been so uncomplicated and fulfilling before he'd unconsciously developed an internal barometer for ambient, imminent, probable, and even improbable idiocy. Aided no doubt by his double-edged telepathy. While awareness itself only resulted in processor-aches that ranged from mild and ignorable to 'I'd prefer the loss of limbs and vital components to a caustic chemical bath please;' awareness of idiocy that might in any way affect the Cause left him obligated to deal with it. And with the caliber of his fellow Decepticons, Soundwave found himself spending an inordinate amount of time on damage control.

Luckily, he could occasionally bludgeon to nonexistence with the force of his stare whatever notion of stupidity had gripped the mech in question before anything happened. This had a high probability of happening with the mech, or mecha or combinations of said mecha that triggered his ambient idiocy sense. Mecha like Skywarp or Ramjet or Swindle.

Stopping Swindle from convincing the Constructicons that they needed to buy his pilfered cargo-hold of transistors (notoriously faulty ones, as Soundwave knew from his deep investigation of reading newspaper headlines), that they would have just stolen anyway, had they needed them, was as simple as looming behind Swindle in an empty corridor and reminding him that disgruntled and insulted Constructicons inevitably led to a disgruntled and mechicidal Megatron. Regardless of the ease of dealing with these types of mecha, Soundwave had cultivated a habit of always shunting his finer logic programs to lower tier processing as a preventative measure whenever he found himself in their proximity.

More often than not, however, the time Soundwave had to spend corralling and mitigating the imbecility was astounding.

It had taken him the better part of two joors, for example, to hunt down and re-educate all the conspirators to Breakdown's most recent paranoia. The Stunticon had taken it into his processor that wrapping his helm with the organics' sheet-thin aluminum would keep any and all spying out of his head. Soundwave, who only ever flitted his gift over surface thoughts unless given cause to tunnel deeper, had been shocked to find all manner of seditious thoughts crowding the processors of several, normally loyal, mecha - not out of any great conspiracy he discovered, but because they felt they could do so with impunity. All because Breakdown had heard a rumor of a rumor and then spread the idea with the fervor of a mech hunted.

Sometimes Soundwave would have to spend time _and_ considerable processing power to actually compile empirical evidence and precedential anecdotes to deter particularly inane schemes from the more intelligent, and more stupidly dangerous, of his comrades (Shockwave). Or he'd have to spend time and waste his own resources (his cassettes) to curtail plots that, while potentially beneficial to the Cause, were conducted with only one, self-interested goal in mind (Starscream).

Through it all, Soundwave had to fight to smother the rising inclination to violence.

His long familiarity with Frenzy and Rumble, and their antics that were exponentially more ridiculous than any other Decepticon besides Starscream, did nothing to ease his intolerance of any idiocy perpetrated by those who weren't his symbionts.

And the Autobots, with their illogical human allies, just compounded this growing divergence from common sense.

If he'd been alone in his quarters, Soundwave would have shaken his head and rubbed his hand down his faceplates. Here, however, at the tail end of a plant raid he was loathe to show so much emotion...especially since it seemed the rant he'd been nominally listening to was slowing down.

And then he was suddenly listening intently. Hold. On. This...might be worse than anticipated.

"Query: Build what?"

The name was repeated. Snappishly.

Giant Purple Gryphon.

Soundwave knew that his leader, the Great Megatron, had a fault or two, but this...this was an unaccountably ludicrous idea. With no warning, Soundwave's tolerance went dormant. His fight to suppress violence, lost.

With the smooth competence of a mech who has handled rambunctious cassettes and terrifying murderers alike, for longer than the existence of entire civilizations, Soundwave lifted the ranting mech and hurled him through the plant's vast second story window.

The instant and conspicuous silence from both Decepticons and humans amplified the subsequent crash and tinkling of shattered glass raining to the ground.

Soundwave felt...

...he felt good. Very, very refreshed.

Looking around he decided to clarify, in case anyone had misread the situation.

"Defenestration: Unlikely to alter Megatron's unnecessarily illogical plan. Action: Therapeutic restitution for exposure to absurdity. Consequences: Worth it."

And in typical fashion - before Soundwave had finished the last word - Starscream crowed in delight, "Megatron has fallen! I, Starscream am now your leader!"

The sound of a screech, more shattered glass, and a second body clanging to the ground immediately followed.


End file.
